


Night Person

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Body Horror, Courier is Lone Wanderer, Gen, Gore, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Horror, Suspense, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1193442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcade and the courier stumble upon an old vault: the Russian Sleep Experiment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpdUfmRv8UmO6y-AT4DjA5eV7UiLrBDxC), if you dare.

“ **PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HACK THIS TERMINAL**. Pfffft!” the Courier snorted. She began tapping at keys, while Arcade drummed his fingers on the Overseer’s desk. “Bingo! Let’s see what you’ve been hiding, Mr. Overseer...” The brunette cast a glance at said man- little more than a pile of bones, scarp of Vault suit, and loaded 10mm in his chair.

“Have I ever told you how much I love old vaults?” the Followers doctor cut in, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because I _love_ old vaults. The rust, the rotten corpses, unethical experiments still running around...”

“Don’t be such a baby, Arcade.” Erin ordered, skimming systems reports. “I hope your shoes are waterproof. Level One’s flooded.”

“You’re not thinking of going down there, are you?”

“Power’s out, too.”

“Of course it is.”

“Don’t worry, though. There’s a generator on Level Two, where the power is also out... Ooh! Experiment Logs!”

Arcade groaned, and scratched the back of his head. Knowing Courier Six, she would be at this for a while, reading, comparing notes, memorizing details. She was just too damn curious. “...What’s this one?” he asked, moving to read over her shoulder, because honestly, he’s curious too.

“Russian sleep experiment.” Erin responds, eyes flitting across the script. “Prisoners locked in a room and given a special gas to keep them awake, then the crazy shit started...”

“Eh, define “crazy”.”

“Paranoia, whispering into the microphones, then after they covered the portholes, screaming...” Her voice grew vacant, as it usually did when she focused, thinking. The terminal lit her dirty face in green, and stained her blue eyes the same. “Silence. Stopped wanting to get out, just wanted to stay awake. Blocked the drain to flood the level, and...”

“...And?” Arcade prompted, trying to get a better look. These old terminals had one fatal flaw: you had to look at them dead-on to see anything.

Erin quickly backed out of the selection, breathed, and looked away- anywhere but the terminal. “They tore their own skin off. Four of them died somehow, and they locked the last one in the chamber and abandoned the project.”

Arcade ducked a bit to see her eyes under the brim of the Boomers’ hat. She swiveled around, drew the .44 magnum from her right thigh, and checked to ensure all the chambers were filled. “There seems to be a bit of conjecture over whether they’re actually dead, though, and most of the Overseer’s logs are corrupted, so...” They moved out of the office and down the stairs, Erin letting her gun dangle loosely by her side. “One of them’s labeled “Loss of Communication”, so I’m guessing the only place we’re going to find out is Level One. We’re looking for the Head of Security.” she said, leading their way down to the Living Quarters.

“What for?”

“Keycard. The Overseer didn’t have his, but I’m pretty sure the Head of Security would have one, whether he knew what it was for or not.”

“Great. So we’re looking for a corpse.”


	2. Chapter 2

The Courier shrugged and tapped the “open” button as Arcade drew his plasma defender. The door shrieked open, metal scraping metal. With nothing inside, she checked across the hall. “Ooh!” the twenty-three year-old squeaked, walking in and holstering her weapon. Arcade wasn’t so quick to relax, especially considering that what piqued her interest was a decaying body so old, it was little more than bones and a bloodstain on the wall. “Let’s play Murder.”

“It’s two-hundred years-old; you’re not going to find a culprit.”

“Sh’up.” she responded, clasping her hands behind her back. “No bullet, no knife, no weapon, so it wasn’t suicide- unlike our dear Overseer.”

“Unless someone else took it. Like I said, the scene isn’t fresh.”

She made a considerate noise, which morphed into a negative one. “Not likely, but possible.”

“Head bashed in?” Arcade couldn’t resist.

“No way. Too much blood for the skull to be intact.”

She already knew- and if she didn’t, she would figure it out from his guesses. “Throat cut?”

“Bingo. What with?”

“ A knife?” Arcade chanced, standing next to her.

“Blood pattern’s not clean enough. Try again.”

“It could be serrated.” he defended.

“Vault-Tec doesn’t issue serrated. I grew up in one, remember? Hint: her throat was cut with the sharp end of a blunt object.”

“How do you know that?”

She continued staring at the ragged horizontal line of blood at about eye-level on the wall in front of her, and said, “Asshole in the corner has four broken ribs.”

Next to the door, behind them, sure enough, was a second cadaver. “You forgot the left arm.” Arcade added.

Erin turned to look and confirmed it with a nod. “Good job. Probably defensive.”

“And since they’re both dead, suicide is out of the question.”

“Told you. Give up?”

The ex-Enclave man breathed out through his nose. “You win.”

“Again.” Erin smiled, retrieving her gun as she stepped back into the hallway. “She had her throat ripped out with the claw end of a hammer.”

“You sound too happy about that.”

“What if I am?” she challenged, choosing a random room. “Most fun I have in the post-apocalypse.” Another room. Inside was mostly empty, just a bed, dresser, and table with a baseball, matching glove, and comic books. She picked up the book of Police Stories in her left hand, the hand that still twitched occasionally since her brain was scrambled by a 9mm bullet. “I used to read these all the time, in the vault. I still have this issue, back in DC. Doesn’t matter, though; I have the whole thing memorized. My dad started to make them up for me to figure out, and then I started catching the tricks, and making them up for him...”

She stared nostalgically through the cover. “Do you want to go?” Arcade questioned.

The Courier rolled up the magazine and shoved it in Arcade’s bag at his hip, squeezing past, ignoring him.

“Eenie, meenie, minie, mo!” she chose, pointing to a random room. Arcade shook his head and followed as she tapped open the door and stepped inside. She promptly stiffened, and held up her hand in a motion of _stop_. She pointed slowly to the bed next to the door, where the muzzle of a shotgun hung over the footboard, aimed perfectly for the two of them. Her hand trailed down to an amteur tripwire, in inch from the toe of her boot. She stepped carefully over it, around to the bed, and unhooked it from the trigger. Arcade let out the breath he held.

A dresser was upturned for defense, and an aging corpse lay behind it, pistol in hand, security uniform visor up, empty bottle of vodka in his lap. Erin shrugged, “Looks like the security chief to me.” and sorted through his pockets. “Fuck yeah!” she celebrated, stuffing the keycard into her jacket pocket, standing, and leading the way back to the atrium.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Arcade held his plasma defender in both hands while Courier Six’s magnum sat forgotten in its holster. “I thought you were the paranoid one.” he mentioned.

“Hm?” she glanced at her companion while he gestured to her weapon. “Oh, yeah. We haven’t seen anyone yet, so chances are we won’t until we get down to flood level. Probably mirelurks down there.”

Arcade nodded and followed her out the way they came, then to the elevator nestled beneath the Overseer’s office. She groaned as they approached. “The buttons aren’t lit.” she said, demonstrating by pressing one without reaction. The vaultie dropped to her knees, pulled out her screwdriver, popped off the switch cover, and began picking at wires.

Arcade chewed his lips. “How long is this going to take? This place gives me the creeps.”

She stopped, and glared at him. “Do _you_ want to walk down seven flights of stairs?”

“ _Sorry._ ” he “apologized”- more than slightly sarcastically.

_Clink._

Arcade flinches, which made Erin freeze. “What is it?” she asked quietly.

“Listen.”

_..._

_Clink._

_..._

_Clink!_

The girl brushed it off, going back to work. “Lot of these old vaults have doors that keep trying to close. That’s what it sounds like to me...”

The doctor nodded, but still listened.

_..._

_Now I’m the paranoid one._ he thought, and relaxed.

_CLUNK!_

“That was closer.”

“Yeah.”

Gannon raised his gun, adjusting grip slightly. “Tell me that was the elevator.”

She reached down into the wall, and pulled up a wire. “If you say so.”

Arcade swallowed. “That wasn’t the elevator, was it?”

Erin sparked the wires together, switches powering back up, and called the elevator, standing. “Nope.” The brunette grabbed her .44, facing the empty atrium. “The elevator’s damn slow, but it’s old, so I’m not gonna push it.”

“Ok _ay_...”

_**CLUNK!** _

The elevator whirred slowly, but otherwise, silence. The courier and doctor exchanged a look. Is it gone?

_..._

_hrrrrrrraaaaaaAAAAA **AAAAAAH!**_

It came from the living quarters- humanoid, but wrong- at an impossible pace, hands clawing at the air in a futile attempt to increase speed. In seconds, undivided attention from a plasma defender and custom .44 magnum put it out of its misery. Erin holstered her gun on her thigh, and cautiously strode towards it. Arcade remained rooted.

“It’s a ghoul.” she informed, turning it over with her foot, then, more to herself, “Why are there ghouls if there’s no radiation?”

“Could be radiation on the reactor level.” the blond suggested.

“Probably... Hey, c’mere. Look at this.”

The Follower of the Apocalypse reluctantly approached.

The ghoul was grey-skinned- flat tones, not varying stages of rot- and had pure, uncoagulated blood leaking from many wounds. The wounds included their bullet holes, pre-cauterized plasma burns, and patches of missing flesh; not missing skin and exposed muscle, missing muscle, too. He could look between the visible ribs and watch the heart bleed out. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never seen a ghoul losing muscle before...”

“It’s not rotted; the rest is intact. It’s ripped.”

Arcade reached into his bag and removed a pair of tweezers and a tongue depressor. He sheathed his weapon and, using the tweezers, inspected the frayed edge of skin. “You’re right. It’s old; should’ve healed a long time ago. This is repeated trauma. It keeps getting removed.”

“Like he wants it off.”

“Or a dermatillomaniac’s favourite pick spot.”

She looked off, then back to the body. “Boredom. He’s trying to occupy himself.” Erin lowered her left arm close to the body, and tapped at the Geiger counter on her Pip-Boy- reading a consistent zero. “No radiation. This is a test subject; not surprising, he looks more like House did than a ghoul.”

The heavy metal doors on the elevator laboured open, and Erin stood to board.

“Uh, Erin!” Arcade called, tongue depressor poking around in the abdomen.

“Yeah?” she called back, leaning in the doorway so it wouldn’t close.

The Followers doctor looked at her wide-eyed. “He’s missing organs.”

Courier Six scratched at her shoulder. “Cool. You can tell me about it on the way down. Blast his head off and get in.”

He stood and looked down at the aged face, drew his pistol, and melted the head to irradiated sludge before sliding in next to the courier.

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Which organs was he missing?” Erin asked, tapping the number two. The elevator lurched into motion.

“Gall bladder, appendix, kidney, half his liver...”

“Nonessential. Yeah, had to be. The original experiment says they cannibalized themselves.”

“Explains the distended stomach.” Arcade said, wiping the tweezers on the corner of his lab coat- where all the Wasteland filth went. “I thought it was starvation. Where’s the generator?”

She swapped her .44 for the the .357 paired on her other thigh- even more ornate. They were a matching set she said she used to dual-wield, before the twitch. “I’m guessing behind the main reactor, if it’s set up like 101. If not, eh, we’ll figure it out.” She removed her Boomer’s hat just long enough to scratch dandruff from her scalp and push her greasy hair out of her way.

“Why do you carry so many weapons?” Arcade asked, hands folded behind him: small talk.

She pulled the hat back on. “What if one of ‘em breaks?” she chatted, too much of a smile.

Arcade had traveled with her long enough to know when she was lying. Erin hated her smile; she only used it when she was telling half-truths. “They’re all in perfect condition.Is that really what you’re worried about?”

She spun the barrel of her .357, watching the floor-counter tick down. “I used to run out of ammo all the time, okay? So I started hoarding it, even calibers I couldn’t use, because I’d eventually find a gun for it.”

He nodded, eyeing the sniper and varmint rifles over her back. She still wouldn’t look at him. “Why’d you switch for the .357?”

“Game face on.” she said as the doors squealed open to pitch black. She clicked her Pip-Boy light on and led the way.

“Creepy” was an understatement Arcade supplied. What could be seen of the walls in the dim was rusted, but Courier Six wasn’t fazed. Through a doorway on the right, the reactor was nearly dead-silent, save for electrical shorts  sparking from it. The generator was, in fact, behind the main reactor, and she set her gun on top of it to try and start it up.

“Not working.” she mentioned, settling against it with her screwdriver.

Gannon sighed. “I’ve gotta take a leak. You good?”

“Sure,” she said, fishing out Benny’s old lighter from her pocket and handing it to him, “just don’t pee on one of the reactors. They’ll be starting up soon. Hopefully...”

“Yeah, I know. Can’t figure out why you can’t just carry a flashlight...” He rolled his eyes, and walked off.

Erin moved around the side of the machine. “What the fuck...?” she muttered. A side panel was missing, and the wires torn apart, like someone had reached in and pulled out a handful. That would electrocute someone to death. She shook her head and got to work, duct-taping matching wires together. Footsteps approached, and stopped in the doorway. “That was quick.” she observed, touching wires together to see what sparked. “You sure you aren’t dehydrated?” She barely glanced at his silhouette in the doorway and waited for an equally sarcastic response. None came. She bit off a strip of tape and linked a couple wires together. “Aw, c’mon, Arcade, your attempted comebacks are the highlight of my day!” Surely that  would goad him.

...

Nothing.

Her playful grin began to drop. “Arcade?” She held up her arm, directing the light on- “Definitely not Arcade!” Erin lunged for the .357, but these creature were fast, and already had her, fighting with teeth and bloodied fingertips, shouting garbled nonsense. Her left hand pushed against its chin, right fumbling for the 10mm on her hip.

“Erin, what the- holy shit!” Arcade gasped, groping for his plasma defender. Erin finally grasped her gun, slammed the butt into the creature’s forehead, kicked it to the floor, and emptied what was left of the clip into it, animalistic noises pouring from its mouth as it writhed on the floor. The courier stomped its head in.

The brunette took a breath and reloaded, then holstered her 10mm. Gannon reached for her arm to check for injuries, but she yanked it away. “It’ll be easier when the lights come on. Just a sec.” she said, touching two more wires together, a standing light on the generator flickered on. She tapped it, and a dull hum began as electricity sparked to life.

Erin stood, flipped off her light, and hopped to sit on the generator. “Examine away.”

He did. It was mostly defensive scratches, but there was a decent bite on her neck. She winced as he dabbed vodka in it. “Sorry.”

She shrugged. “It’s better than corpse spit.”

He rolled his eyes. “I mean for letting you get hurt. It’s kind of my job to not let this kind of thing happen...” Arcade said, tapeing a bandage to her neck. “All done.”

“Thanks. And that’s not why I keep you around.” she said, leading him back to the elevator.

“Oh, so it’s my shining personality?”

Now that the lights were back on, Arcade could see bloody claw marks streaking the walls. He hurried into the waiting elevator. “As much as I love challenged for my standing as Mojave Snark Master, that’s not it either.”

“ _Excuse_ me, _I_ am the Sass Master.” the doctor joked.

Erin his the “door shut” button, and looked over her Pip-Boy for the code. “Eh, fancy term for second place.” she responded, inputting the digits and swiping her pilfered ID. The elevator lurched downward, and she drew her .357. “No idea what we’re going to find down there, so keep your guard up.”

Arcade nodded, looking over his plasma defender, hoping nothing was broken. It was still fine. He scratched his cheek on his shoulder and sniffed at the dust collecting in his nose, pretending to be casual. “...Why _do_ you keep me around?”

Courier Six cocked her gun and watched the floor click down- level two. “I’m afraid of being alone.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Holy-!” Arcade exclaimed, Erin shushing him reflexively.

“Chill. It’s dead.”

She was right. A corpse hung on the wall about five feet directly ahead, skull in pieces on the floor. The right hand was pinned above it’s head by- was that a surgical scalpel?- wedged between wall plates. Only a few pieces of rotting sinew prevented it from matching the left, fallen off.

Arcade swallowed and ran his fingers swiftly through his hair, pausing to scratch at the back. “I’m not worried about the dead guy. I don’t want to run into whatever killed him.”

Erin shrugged, sloshing through the four or so inches of water towards the body. “Keep your hand on your gun, and we’ll be fine. There are two upstairs, so they probably aren’t hanging around down here.”

Arcade shivered and rubbed furiously at the back of his arm. “Whatever. Can you just satisfy your inner giant nerd so we can get out of here?”

“My nerd side is all outer, I assure you. I’ve got worse to hide than a science boner...” she said, leading him around a corner. She stepped nonchalantly over another body, all twisted joints and rotten viscera.

Arcade paused only briefly, grimaced, and trotted after. “This floor is a massacre.”

“Ground zero.” The Courier replied. Then she stopped, sniffing. “You smell that?”

“Other than death, decay, and two hundred years of microbial buildup? No.”

“Smells kinda fruity...” She scratched her nose. “Maybe I’m just more used to the smell of death.”

“Maybe you’re having an olfactory hallucination?” he snarked.

“I know when I’m in the headspace to get hallucinations, Arcade. I’ve had plenty.” Courier Six returned nonchalantly, approaching the control board. She unceremoniously shoved a skeleton in what used to be a labcoat from the swivel chair it was draped over, took the seat herself, and turned on the terminal. “It’s giving me deja vu.” She stopped, looked up, and inhaled deeply through her nose, squinting unsurely. “...Gary?”

“... _What?_ ”

Erin ignored him, shaking her head as she pulled up her Pip-Boy. “No, no, not Gary, the other one. One-o’... One-o’... One-o’six!”

“I hate to repeat myself, but... _what?_ ”

“Vault 106 had hallucinogenic gas leached into the air filtration. That’s what it smells like. Vault 106.” she concluded, satisfied, and returned to the terminal.

Arcade flexed his grip on the plasma defender and inspected the pipes running the ceiling for holes. He said distantly, “You know when you’re having hallucinations, huh? What a talent. Bet that comes in handy.”

“More or less.”

He took one hand off his gun to hold it up. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Without taking her eyes off the terminal, without turning to look at them, she said, “Four.”

The doctor blanched. She tapped the screen. “I can see you in the reflection, Arcade.” He sighed in relief as she went on, “I can see who’s behind you, too.”

He whipped around, defender at the ready, and Erin cackled. He huffed to catch his breath. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t pass that up. Oh! Got it!”

And he’d lost her to research logs again. Arcade surveyed their surroundings. A few of the overhead lamps were busted, and the bulbs were going or gone in the rest of them. He eyed one flickering spastically, and shot it. He really couldn’t risk Erin having a seizure down here. Ah, the finer points of traumatic brain damage...

There was an airtight bulkhead to his right, a small decontamination room that jutted out from the research chamber. The portholes were all blocked with what was assumedly human (or, post-human) waste, and paper. He shuddered to think what was inside, and scratched his forearm under his labcoat. He pulled up the sleeve to see if he picked up a rash or something, but the redness looked to be from irritation of scratching at it. Weird. He probably just needed to bathe. Really though, when didn’t he?

Past the bulkhead was a medical privacy curtain, and the corner of an operating table protruding from behind it. From the flickering lamp that had half-fallen out of the ceiling, he could see a foot sitting on it.

“Most of the logs are corrupted- I think on purpose. The system readings are still active, though. Looks like the chamber itself isn’t flooded, so that’s awesome.”

“You’re buying me new shoes, by the way.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Hey, c’mere. Read this.”

He leaned over her shoulder to get a look at the screen. It was system details, state of the door seal, gas pressure, oxygen levels, things you would expect. “...Why am I reading this?”

“What does it tell you?”

The doctor sighed heavily; Six always made him figure everything out himself. She got some sick pleasure out of watching people figure out what she already knew. Or, maybe she knew he had more fun when he made discoveries himself. Either, really. “Well, gas pressure’s low, which means it’s leaking into the rest of the vault, fantastic. Guess that explains why it smells fruity to you.”

“Go on.”

“Uh... The chamber’s not flooded, because it’s sealed. Air filtration running... What am I looking for?”

The Courier spun round in the chair, and they seemed a lot closer now that they were facing each other. “Focus on the air composition.”

He tried to glare over her shoulder, and instead pushed the rolling chair out of the way, skimming off through the water. Erin hopped up, and walked over. “Sixty-three percent oxygen, eight percent nitrogen, twenty-six percent carbon dioxide... Wait, what in hell...?”

“It’s hyperbaric. Well, it used to be. It’s ancient.”

“That still doesn’t make any sense. If it’s leaking, there should be a lot more nitrogen, and way less carbon dioxide.”

“Think about it,” Six suggested, leaning on the wall beside the desk, “what makes carbon dioxide?”

Arcade’s face froze, and he straightened up. “...Respiration.”

She nodded, and grinned. “We’ve got a live one.”


	6. Chapter 6

The Follower did not like the look on her face. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Erin, _no_. I forbid you.”

“Try and stop me.”

He sighed. “At least flush it. Then you can take a gun.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he went on, “You saw how many shots it took to kill the others.”

“It’s adapted to high oxygen content. Changing that could kill it.”

“Yeah,” Arcade said, leaning forward, “that’s the point.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m going, like it or not.”

He grabbed her by the shoulder with the intention to shake, but he was already shaking. He looked at the floor; there was so much mud on the both of them. “...I don’t want to walk back to Freeside alone.”

She sighed, and put a hand on his shoulder, as well. “I’m not dying. Not here.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“I’ve had unarmed training from the Legion’s finest- you’ve seen me beat a man to death.”

“Yes, it was horrifying.”

“So? I’ll be fine.”

Her hair was filthy- stringy enough it parted along the scar on the side of her head. Arcade dropped his hand. She slung both the rifles off her back and set them on that table. Two magnums. The 10mm. A gilded 9mm from an inner jacket pocket. She licked her chapped lips, thinking.

“The lighter.”

“Right, right.” she said, and set it on top of the pile. It looked excessive for one person- two, even. “Okay. You hit that oxygen flooding when I’m in.”

“Erin.”

She turned, hand on her hip, other scratching at her hairline. “Arcade?”

“...Remind me to check you for lice.”

“Hey, if I’ve got ‘em, so do you.”

He felt very itchy, all of the sudden. Erin yanked open the bulkhead against the pressure of four inches of water on the outside, and stepped in.

It closed. Arms crossed, Arcade shook his head, and stepped over to the terminal. “This is a bad idea...” he mumbled, locking the bulkhead. When he activated the flooding process, a light above the door flashed, soaking the room in red.

Erin had brass knuckles on one of her hands when he got back to the window. She smiled, and waved. Arcade smiled back, with as little evident fear as he could manage. She spun the wheel on the door, and cracked it open.

The Courier’s knuckles cracked around the metal set. Nothing had lunged at her yet; that was a good sign. She stepped in. Shut the door behind her.

There was quite a smell- human waste, bodily rot, that hallucinogenic gas, and something like mildew. The lights were out- and she didn’t dare look for a switch on the wall in case it lit up the room like a nuke. She turned on her Pip-Boy light, and swept the glow across the floor. That looked like a corpse, shriveled- too little left of it to be anything but, on closer look. Too old and rotted from every bacteria that tunneled out of its intestinal tract to tell. So if that one was dead...

Breathing, to the left. Coarse and heavy- strained, dry. She swung the light that direction, and it didn’t shy, oddly enough. A few cautious steps closer, and she saw why- both the eyes were gouged and gone. Not just that, both legs, arms, nose, the ear on the side facing her ripped off, but _this_ was the one breathing. She checked it was the only one quickly, and moved closer, since it really couldn’t be a threat on any level but microbial. “God, what happened to you...?”

The jaw worked, wheezing sounds spilling out desperately. “...Wait,” she said, crouching in front of it, “you’re not... trying to talk?”

More wheezing, a movement in the neck that seemed to resemble a nod. “Fuck...!” she whispered. “I- okay, just... Just hold on.”

The human body was the most fascinating machine Erin had ever known. There were laws to anatomy, but the draw of humanity was that sometimes, it ignored those rules completely. Supermutants, ghouls. Joshua Graham. This was like that, she reminded herself. Just because she couldn’t explain it didn’t make it unexplainable.

She opened her canteen, and moved slowly. “I’m going to give you some water, okay?”

The nod that returned was about as enthusiastic as quadruple amputee rotting alive could accomplish. Six poured slowly, and though it had great difficulty swallowing, the mouth kept opening until she drained the canteen. “I’m sorry, that’s all I have.”

“ _Ein_ ” it seemed to say, but the lips were half ripped away. Maybe it was trying to say “fine?” Oh, God.

Was it _speaking_?

It gurgled, and for a moment she worried it was drowning on water left in the throat, but the sound shifted into a growl, a rolled R almost, in the mouth. The _ih_ was clear, sound intended to be breathy and lipless. _Gri_ \- it was forming a word. A hiss- an S-H, followed by an open _ah_.

“...Grisha?”

It- _he_ ; the genitalia were mostly intact, at least- nodded, but that was no word Erin knew. It didn’t sound like a word, either, not really. It sounded like a... “Is that a name?”

A nod.

“ _Your_ name?”

Nod.

Grisha. His name was Grisha.

He had a name. He was a person. Six swallowed. “It’s... nice to meet you, Grisha. I’m Erin.”

It came as a surprise how easily he said her name. She supposed she’d never tried to speak without her lips. “Yeah. That’s it.”

He didn’t have lips, but his mouth had corners, which spread and crooked up his face. Smiling. It shouldn’t have scared her, but it did. “You’re very sentient, Grisha. In the worst physical condition, but best mentally.”

This word came easily as well, though the S was hissed through teeth: “ _Others_.” She assumed it was a question, but words were hard enough for him, without inflection.

“Yes. Others. Two, both dead.” She didn’t specify how they had died.

Shaking his head seemed a lot more laborious than nodding, lifting away from the floor and falling back. He clicked his tongue. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“Three?” Erin confirmed. “There are three?”

Grisha nodded.

Six was itchy all over, not sure if it was dried sweat or the goosebumps. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

His mouth twitched up at the corner, but he didn’t attempt words. Erin filled the space. “Grisha, you know you...”

A nod.

Quietly, she admitted, “I can’t help you.”

A nod, resigned.

“Do you...” She kneeled, and wet her lips. “Do you want to sleep?”

His breathing stuttered, like crying, but the water hadn’t worked into his system enough to form tears. His head tilted down, then up.

Erin looked down at her hands- could barely see them with the light angled away, but she was pale, and brass glints. She slipped the knuckles in her pockets.

Strangulation. Just like falling asleep.

Six looked at his neck, sinewy and hollow, and thought of the scattered victims of starvation she’d seen across the Wasteland. Thought of her father, for some reason. She put her hands on her thighs. “Grisha, is... is it okay if I pray for you?”

A small nod, and smaller smile.

She hadn’t prayed in years- not since her father died- but hell, where science fails, people turn to religion. Grisha certainly had. Maybe she was, too.

Arcade had the Med-X, and she didn’t think stimpaks would do anything for a body this far past natural constraints. Erin moved to just above the top of his head, put a hand to the side, careful to avoid the open sore where an ear used to be.

“Lord, I don’t ask for much.” She slid a hand underneath the other side, rotating it gently to face straight up, like the torso. There was so much ichor on the floor where it had rested; the side of his face was ground away. “I’m asking for Grisha. He’s suffered enough.” Her hands moved slowly down. She could feel his heartbeat in her fingertips. “Take him away from this.” She crossed her thumbs over his trachea, and pressed. “Give him rest, and peace, and Your love. Forgive him for everything, and restore his spirit and mind to the way You intended. Give him his family, or friends, or whatever.” Grisha didn’t fight. She could feel the shaking coming up from his lungs, but he stayed still. He would pass out soon. “Please just... save this soul.” His mouth hung open, gasping for breath, but nothing came through. She closed her own eyes. “And my God, forgive me for this. Amen.”

She held until the shaking, the twitches, the pulse stilled. Six stood quickly, scrubbed her hands on her jeans. She needed new ones.

He was dead, by definition, but the human body had a habit of ignoring things like that. Erin lifted one foot, and stomped his skull in. She’d need new boots, too.

She didn’t want to look at Grisha- or what was left of him- so she swept the light around the room once more (particularly eyeing that corpse in the centre of the room, but it was really a skeleton) and opened the bulkhead.

Arcade was waiting when she came out. “Care to tell me what “training with the Legion” means to you?”

Her eyes felt heavy to lift to his. “I want to get out of here.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Arcade yawned as she collected her weapons; her movements were slow, whole body seemed heavy. “What happened in there?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” she snuffed.

“I do! We traipsed this whole vault uncovering this medical mystery, you have to tell me the climax.”

“Later, okay?” Erin snapped, slinging the rifle over her shoulder and pushing past him, sloshing towards the elevator.

He uncrossed his arms, hands up in supplication. “Fine. I’ll be a better listener in the morning, anyway.” She waited until he stepped in, and set the elevator for the atrium floor. “I can’t wait to go to bed.”

“You know, it’s weird,” Erin mumbled, scratching a bleeding patch on the back of her neck, “I’m not tired.”


End file.
